#bizandrob

This weekend were lucky enough to be able to celebrate two of our dearest friends Biz and Rob in Atlanta.

The whole weekend was filled with joy and excitement (love this sneaky pic)…

 

Amazing views and good friends.

 

I actually read scripture in their wedding, and it says better than I can what it means to love with the way you live, not just what you say…

We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?

Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us. – 1 John 3:16-24

We wish you two lived in New York with us… but more than that, we wish you the best as you start your lives together!

Let the Countdown Begin

These crazy kids / my sister and brother-in-law are coming to visit us for the long holiday weekend! Obviously, I’m excited, and you can count on a recap post with lots of photos and hopefully tales of yummy dinners (Minetta Tavern, black label burger, I am coming for you) and treats (Cones, Magnolia, Waffles & Dinges… where to begin).

Also, we’re going to see Sleeping Beauty and The Fantasticks. Talk about a weekend. Get ready, guys.

Homemade Ravioli

Finally! For our wedding gift, our friends Nick and Rebecca (who were also our saviors during Sandy) gave us an adorable pasta maker and the ravioli attachment. Since the day we opened the gift, I have wanted to have them over to actually use it! It has been many months in the making, but finally, we broke in our pasta machine and made delicious homemade ravioli.

We started off with quite the spread of dips, hummus and pita, which worked out well… because it was basically midnight by the time our little spinach and ricotta stuffed pillows floated to the top of our boiling pot of salted water.

Earlier in the day we decided on the spinach and ricotta filling for our ravioli. This was partially influenced by the fact that I had ordered ricotta from Fresh Direct, hoping for 8 ounces, and somehow ended up with three pounds… all to make a white pizza! But this is the recipe we used for our yummy filling. I used part-skim ricotta and fresh spinach, so it was practically healthy, right?

We did make the accompanying sage butter, and it was perfect. So perfect, the only photo I have is from my sage chopping job:

First step was to make our “test dough” to “season” our new machine. The dough is only egg and white flour – and you start by “building a well for the egg”.

When we made our actual dough – which consisted of three times as many ingredients, we realized a bowl would be a lot more conducive to an egg well than our flat counter.

Rebecca was the resident dough maker-

And the boys our supporters (and cleaner uppers).

And after a little kneading and letting the dough “rest” we were on to rolling the dough through the machine.

Each time you roll the dough through the machine, you change the setting to make the dough thinner.

Once the dough is thinned, you crease it, put it in the ravioli machine and spoon the filling into it. And voila! Ravioli!

Once you separate all the individual ravioli, they cook in about three minutes. Fresh pasta cooks incredibly fast and float to the top when they’re done.

I was so excited (and hungry) by the time we were ready to eat them, I forgot to snap a picture with the sage butter.

We had so much fun making dinner, and we are so grateful to have such wonderful friends nearby. If you ever want a reason to linger over dinner and really spend time with people, I would recommend a homemade pasta maker. It’s work, but it’s the most fun I’ve had making dinner in a while.

So if you’re ever in the neighborhood and have some time to spare, let’s pick up a couple of pounds of ricotta and catch up over flour and eggs because a four hour dinner is the truest indulgence.

Lights On

To say it has been quite a week is a bit of an understatement, but we weathered Sandy here in lower Manhattan and the lights are finally, finally back on. Although we lost power for many days and a decent amount of food, we made it and were more fortunate than many of our neighbors.

We were blessed with great friends who did have power, and we shared many a meal and phone charging session in their apartment. One of my favorite meals was the night we had breakfast for dinner.

And the boys did the dishes. :)

On Tuesday, before we know how long lower Manhattan’s lights would be off, I snapped this photo from Hewitt’s office in Midtown. (I was there because they had power… a version of take your wife to work day, or something.)

The sun came up for us after all, and now we’re putting ourselves back together. Take that, Sandy.

Lately

Here’s a little insight into the places and people we’ve seen over the last few weeks – and some of the delicious food!

We headed south to Atlanta to see two good friends tie the knot. Since the wedding was Saturday night, naturally we realized that although the Braves were away that weekend, the PGA Tour Championship happened to be very close by. I would have taken pictures there, but the PGA doesn’t joke around about cameras. It was however the perfect day in the warm sun on beautifully manicured grass, with old, old oak trees gracing us with their shade. Quite a change from dear Manhattan!

Tripper and Emily’s wedding was beautiful, and we were so excited to be there to celebrate with them.

What girl doesn’t love a good black tie event.

Have a great time in South Africa!

Fast forward, back to New York. A food festival that takes place in Madison Square Park, aptly named Madison Square Eats, happens twice a year, and some of friends invited us to partake.

I only took one food picture – Mimi and Coco’s Teriyaki Balls. You could choose shrimp, potato or sausage as a filling and then they were drenched in Japanese teriyaki sauce and mayo, tempura crunchy flakes, sliced almonds and parsley. We had four with potato and four with sausage also opted in on the Sriracha. They were quite a ball of flavor, that’s for sure.

Later, Ellen was up from Atlanta for work, and Emily and I took her for gelato (or affogato) at Grom after a great dinner at Marinella.

And we managed to squeeze in a bit more time pre-flight over brunch at The Standard.

Hewitt and I finally tried out RedFarm. It’s a dim sum restaurant I have had my eyes on since he moved up here over a year ago. They don’t take reservations, but they will let you put your name in and then call you when your table is ready. Even if you don’t live in the neighborhood, there’s plenty to do nearby while waiting, and I think it was worth the wait.

These were some of the dumplings we tried –  shrimp and snow pea. They were great. The pork and crab soup dumplings were also amazing, my picture just quite turn out. I may or may not be ordering take-out from them very soon.

So that’s a lot of what we have been up to lately – just add work, sleep and a few other things. Now that it’s Tuesday, I’m counting down until my parents come visit us for the first time this weekend! I can’t wait. More on that later.

The Company That Visited

Previously, I blogged about my college roommates who were coming to visit a few weeks ago, and life has been crazy since then. So here is my overdue recap of the fantastic weekend we had with perfect weather, successful shopping and great food, drink and time together.

We kicked things off at my apartment with some pre-dinner indulgences – the chunky blue cheese & yogurt dip and fresh pico de gallo were definitely a hit. You’ll see the chunky blue cheese dip (actually made with gorgonzola) featured here with yummy broccoli (blanching before serving is the trick!), Stacy’s pita chips and endive. (Thanks to Moriah for this action shot.)

Highlights include but are not limited to –  a great small plates dinner at Barrio 47, complete with a toast and complimentary treats thanks to a mass Foursquare / Yelp check-in.

Very New York bagels at Murray’s (don’t ask them to toast!) followed by an intense round of shopping through Soho, primarily at Piperlime’s first store. Such shopping warranted a trip to Shake Shack in Madison Square Park. It was the perfect afternoon pick-me-up- even if we had to wait more than an hour at 3:30 pm.

Nice Work if You Can Get it was. so. much. fun. Matthew Broderick and Cameron Adams were delightful. It was probably the funniest and lightest show I have ever seen on Broadway, and the title song is actually still stuck in my head.

The name of the speakeasy in the show is called “Sweet and Lowdown”, and I just found these Sweet’n Low packets on twitter.  How perfect!

One of the best parts of the show was when Cameron, who was Kelli O’Hara’s understudy, said her name was Bobbi, instead of Billie. For just a moment, the cast got tickled, but then seemingly improved their way out of it. It definitely made our performance feel unique!

After the show, we checked out a perfectly cozy French place in Greenwich Village called Amelie. The service and ambience were amazing. As was the food; especially the ravioli, or Gratin de ravioles du Royans.

They even delivered the check in cute French paperbacks. I’ll definitely be back!

On Sunday we had brunch at Tipsy Parson – a sweet and savory, Southern-influenced favorite of mine. They also serve Stumptown Coffee, which is delicious and have books painted on the wall, which I love.

Everyone started to taper off as the day went by and flights home beckoned, but a few of us were able to visit the 9/11 Memorial. Our conversation actually ended up on where we were, as freshman in high school across North Carolina the morning of September 11, 2001. How much has changed for all of us since that day. It was a sobering place to visit, and we all agreed that once complete and open to the public, it will be a safe harbor for reflection and remembrance.

In summary, we had a blast, and although I got us a bit mixed up on the subway once or twice, I hope they’ll all be back to visit soon!